Astrophysics

We have developed a method for estimating the properties of the progenitor dwarf galaxy from the tidal stream of stars that were ripped from it as it fell into the Milky Way. In particular, we show that the mass and radial profile of a progenitor dwarf galaxy evolved along the orbit of the Orphan Stream, including the stellar and dark matter components, can be reconstructed from the distribution of stars in the tidal stream it produced. We use MilkyWay@home, a PetaFLOPS-scale distributed supercomputer, to optimize our dwarf galaxy parameters until we arrive at best-fit parameters. The algorithm fits the dark matter mass, dark matter radius, stellar mass, radial profile of stars, and orbital time. The parameters are recovered even though the dark matter component extends well past the half light radius of the dwarf galaxy progenitor, proving that we are able to extract information about the dark matter halos of dwarf galaxies from the tidal debris. Our simulations assumed that the Milky Way potential, dwarf galaxy orbit, and the form of the density model for the dwarf galaxy were known exactly; more work is required to evaluate the sources of systematic error in fitting real data. This method can be used to estimate the dark matter content in dwarf galaxies without the assumption of virial equilibrium that is required to estimate the mass using line-of-sight velocities. This demonstration is a first step towards building an infrastructure that will fit the Milky Way potential using multiple tidal streams.

We study protostellar envelope and outflow evolution using Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS or WFC3 images of 304 protostars in the Orion Molecular clouds. These near-IR images resolve structures in the envelopes delineated by the scattered light of the central protostars with 80 AU resolution and they complement the 1.2-870 micron spectral energy distributions obtained with the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey program (HOPS). Based on their 1.60 micron morphologies, we classify the protostars into five categories: non-detections, point sources without nebulosity, bipolar cavity sources, unipolar cavity sources, and irregulars. We find point sources without associated nebulosity are the most numerous, and show through monochromatic Monte Carlo radiative transfer modeling that this morphology occurs when protostars are observed at low inclinations or have low envelope densities. We also find that the morphology is correlated with the SED-determined evolutionary class with Class 0 protostars more likely to be non-detections, Class I protostars to show cavities and flat-spectrum protostars to be point sources. Using an edge detection algorithm to trace the projected edges of the cavities, we fit power-laws to the resulting cavity shapes, thereby measuring the cavity half-opening angles and power-law exponents. We find no evidence for the growth of outflow cavities as protostars evolve through the Class I protostar phase, in contradiction with previous studies of smaller samples. We conclude that the decline of mass infall with time cannot be explained by the progressive clearing of envelopes by growing outflow cavities. Furthermore, the low star formation efficiency inferred for molecular cores cannot be explained by envelope clearing alone.

The simplest scheme for predicting real galaxy properties after performing a dark matter simulation is to rank order the real systems by stellar mass and the simulated systems by halo mass and then simply assume monotonicity - that the more massive halos host the more massive galaxies. This has had some success, but we study here if a better motivated and more accurate matching scheme is easily constructed by looking carefully at how well one could predict the simulated IllustrisTNG galaxy sample from its dark matter computations. We find that using the dark matter rotation curve peak velocity, v max , for normal galaxies reduces the error of the prediction by 30% (18% for central galaxies and 60% for satellite systems) - following expectations from Faber-Jackson and the physics of monolithic collapse. For massive systems with halo mass > 10 12.5 M ??hierarchical merger driven formation is the better model and dark matter halo mass remains the best single metric. Using a new single variable that combines these effects, ? = v max / v max,12.7 + M peak /(10 12.7 M ??) allows further improvement and reduces the error, as compared to ranking by dark matter mass at z=0 by another 6% from v max ranking. Two parameter fits -- including environmental effects produce only minimal further impact.

We explore the relationships between the chemistry, ages, and locations of stars in the Galaxy using asteroseismic data from the K2 mission and spectroscopic data from the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment survey. Previous studies have used giant stars in the Kepler field to map the relationship between the chemical composition and the ages of stars at the solar circle. Consistent with prior work, we find that stars with high [Alpha/Fe] have distinct, older ages in comparison to stars with low [Alpha/Fe]. We provide age estimates for red giant branch (RGB) stars in the Kepler field, which support and build upon previous age estimates by taking into account the effect of alpha-enrichment on opacity. Including this effect for [Alpha/Fe]-rich stars results in up to 10% older ages for low-mass stars relative to corrected solar mixture calculations. This is a significant effect that Galactic archaeology studies should take into account. Looking beyond the Kepler field, we estimate ages for 735 red giant branch stars from the K2 mission, mapping age trends as a function of the line of sight. We find that the age distributions for low- and high-[Alpha/Fe] stars converge with increasing distance from the Galactic plane, in agreement with suggestions from earlier work. We find that K2 stars with high [Alpha/Fe] appear to be younger than their counterparts in the Kepler field, overlapping more significantly with a similarly aged low-[Alpha/Fe] population. This observation may suggest that star formation or radial migration proceeds unevenly in the Galaxy.

Recent evidence based on APOGEE data for stars within a few kpc of the Galactic centre suggests that dissolved globular clusters (GCs) contribute significantly to the stellar mass budget of the inner halo. In this paper we enquire into the origins of tracers of GC dissolution, N-rich stars, that are located in the inner 4 kpc of the Milky Way. From an analysis of the chemical compositions of these stars we establish that about 30% of the N-rich stars previously identified in the inner Galaxy may have an accreted origin. This result is confirmed by an analysis of the kinematic properties of our sample. The specific frequency of N-rich stars is quite large in the accreted population, exceeding that of its in situ counterparts by near an order of magnitude, in disagreement with predictions from numerical simulations. We hope that our numbers provide a useful test to models of GC formation and destruction.

This paper investigates a spherically symmetric compact relativistic body with isotropic pressure profiles within the framework of general relativity. In order to solve the Einstein's field equations, we have considered the Vaidya-Tikekar type metric potential, which depends upon parameter K. We have presented a perfect fluid model, considering K<0 or K>1, which represent compact stars like SMC X-1, Her X-1, 4U 1538-52, SAX J1808.4-3658, LMC X-4, EXO 1785-248 and 4U1820-30, to an excellent degree of accuracy. We have investigated the physical features such as the energy conditions, velocity of sound, surface redshift, adiabatic index of the model in detail and shown that our model obeys all the physical requirements for a realistic stellar model. Using the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations, we have explored the hydrostatic equilibrium and the stability of the compact objects. This model also fulfils the Harrison-Zeldovich-Novikov stability criterion. The results obtained in this paper can be used in analyzing other isotropic compact objects.

Andromeda XXI (And XXI) has been proposed as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy with a central dark matter density that is lower than expected in the Standard ? Cold Dark Matter ( ? CDM) cosmology. In this work, we present dynamical observations for 77 member stars in this system, more than doubling previous studies to determine whether this galaxy is truly a low density outlier. We measure a systemic velocity of v r =??63.4±1.0 kms ?? and a velocity dispersion of ? v = 6.1 +1.0 ??.9 kms ?? , consistent with previous work and within 1? of predictions made within the modified Newtonian dynamics framework. We also measure the metallicity of our member stars from their spectra, finding a mean value of [Fe/H]=??.7±0.1 ~dex. We model the dark matter density profile of And~XXI using an improved version of \GravSphere, finding a central density of ? DM (150pc)= 2.7 +2.7 ??.7 ? 10 7 M ??kp c ?? at 68\% confidence, and a density at two half light radii of ? DM (1.75kpc)= 0.9 +0.3 ??.2 ? 10 5 M ??kp c ?? at 68\% confidence. These are both a factor ???? lower than the densities expected from abundance matching in ? CDM. We show that this cannot be explained by `dark matter heating' since And~XXI had too little star formation to significantly lower its inner dark matter density, while dark matter heating only acts on the profile inside the half light radius. However, And~XXI's low density can be accommodated within ? CDM if it experienced extreme tidal stripping (losing >95% of its mass), or if it inhabits a low concentration halo on a plunging orbit that experienced repeated tidal shocks.

The study of the Aromatic Infrared Bands (AIBs) in astronomical environments has opened interesting spectroscopic questions on the effect of anharmonicity on the infrared (IR) spectrum of hot polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and related species in isolated conditions. The forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope will unveil unprecedented spatial and spectral details in the AIB spectrum; significant advancement is thus necessary now to model the infrared emission of PAHs, their presumed carriers, with enough detail to exploit the information content of the AIBs. This requires including anharmonicity in such models, and to do so systematically for all species included, requiring a difficult compromise between accuracy and efficiency. We performed a benchmark study to compare the performances of two methods in calculating anharmonic spectra, comparing them to available experimental data. One is a full quantum method, AnharmoniCaOs, relying on an ab initio potential, and the other relies on Molecular Dynamics simulations using a Density Functional based Tight Binding potential. The first one is found to be very accurate and detailed, but it becomes computationally very expensive for increasing temperature; the second is faster and can be used for arbitrarily high temperatures, but is less accurate. Still, its results can be used to model the evolution with temperature of isolated bands. We propose a new recipe to model anharmonic AIB emission using minimal assumptions on the general behaviour of band positions and widths with temperature, which can be defined by a small number of empirical parameters. Modelling accuracy will depend critically on these empirical parameters, allowing for an incremental improvement in model results, as better estimates become gradually available.

We apply the Tremaine-Weinberg method to 19 nearby galaxies using stellar mass surface densities and velocities derived from the PHANGS-MUSE survey, to calculate (primarily bar) pattern speeds ( Ω P ). After quality checks, we find that around half (10) of these stellar mass-based measurements are reliable. For those galaxies, we find good agreement between our results and previously published pattern speeds, and use rotation curves to calculate major resonance locations (co-rotation radii and Lindblad resonances). We also compare these stellar-mass derived pattern speeds with H α (from MUSE) and CO( J=2?? ) emission from the PHANGS-ALMA survey. We find that in the case of these clumpy ISM tracers, this method erroneously gives a signal that is simply the angular frequency at a representative radius set by the distribution of these clumps ( Ω clump ), and that this Ω clump is significantly different to Ω P ( ??20% in the case of H α , and ??50% in the case of CO). Thus, we conclude that it is inadvisable to use "pattern speeds" derived from ISM kinematics. Finally, we compare our derived pattern speeds and co-rotation radii, along with bar properties, to the global parameters of these galaxies. Consistent with previous studies, we find that galaxies with a later Hubble type have a larger ratio of co-rotation radius to bar length, more molecular-gas rich galaxies have higher Ω P , and more bulge-dominated galaxies have lower Ω P . Unlike earlier works, however, there are no clear trends between the bar strength and Ω P , nor between the total stellar mass surface density and the pattern speed.

We use direct N -body simulations to explore some possible scenarios for the future evolution of two massive clusters observed toward the center of NGC\,4654, a spiral galaxy with mass similar to that of the Milky Way. Using archival HST data, we obtain the photometric masses of the two clusters, M=3? 10 5 M ??and M=1.7? 10 6 M ??, their half-light radii, R eff ?? pc and R eff ?? pc, and their projected distances from the photometric center of the galaxy (both <22 pc). The knowledge of the structure and separation of these two clusters ( ??4 pc) provides a unique view for studying the dynamics of a galactic central zone hosting massive clusters. Varying some of the unknown clusters orbital parameters, we carry out several N -body simulations showing that the future evolution of these clusters will inevitably result in their merger. We find that, mainly depending on the shape of their relative orbit, they will merge into the galactic center in less than 82 Myr. In addition to the tidal interaction, a proper consideration of the dynamical friction braking would shorten the merging times up to few Myr. We also investigate the possibility to form a massive NSC in the center of the galaxy by this process. Our analysis suggests that for low eccentricity orbits, and relatively long merger times, the final merged cluster is spherical in shape, with an effective radius of few parsecs and a mass within the effective radius of the order of 10 5 M ??. Because the central density of such a cluster is higher than that of the host galaxy, it is likely that this merger remnant could be the likely embryo of a future NSC.